My stomach IS flat — it’s jus’ that the ‘L’ is silent.

I ate so much turkey on Thanksgiving day that when I fell asleep, I thought I was going to wake up on Christmas morning.

 

She walked over to the popcorn maker in the waiting area and got herself a bag. She also poured herself a cup of coffee.

As she did this, I took the opportunity to check her out. I’d seen her sitting at one of the tables doing what I believe was some sort of school work.

From the front she was attractive and now I could honestly say she was attractive from the backside, too. Then I looked at her feet, where she had on a fancy pair of ostrich-skin cowboy boots.

As she stepped passed my seat, I said to her with a smile, “I love your boots.”

With a half-surprised, half-angry look on her face, she stopped and asked, “What did you say?!”

She said it with such authority that her question left me feeling unsure as I repeated, “I love your boots?”

The woman smiled warmly, “Wow, my mistake – I thought you said ‘boobs.’ Thank you for the compliment. My husband bought them for me, for my birthday last month.”

“Y-y-your w-w-welcome,” I stammered.

As she headed back to the table she occupied, and having come to within an inch of losing my life, I rapidly scanned the room for a hole to crawl into and hide.

So, I took my wife’s car in to have the tires rotated. It was a two-hour wait.

“No problem,” I said as I held up the book I had with me.

My plan was to sit quietly and read, but the kids in the waiting area had other plans. Instead, I walked across the parking lot to the second-hand store to have a look around.

After an hour or so of perusing the aisle, I discovered a torn and stained U.S. flag stuffed, unceremoniously in the back of a lower shelf. I pulled it out and took it to the front to tell them that a flag in such disrepair isn’t supposed to be resold, rather it should be properly disposed of through the VFW or American Legion.

The manager was polite, thanking me for bringing it to her attention and that she’d see it was properly taken care of personally. Happy with myself, I headed out the door, when I heard, “Sir! Sir!”

Turning back it was the store manager. She saw my book and told me that I had forgotten to pay for it.

“No,” I replied. “This is mine. I brought it in with me.”

“Really?” she snarked. “You’re gonna steal a 25-cent book after what you jus’ did?”

Ready to show her some attitude, I again said, “No. This book is mine. I’ve had it since before I could read.”

Then this large, obese guy walks up and asks her, “Is this dude giving you trouble?”

She turned back to me and asked, “Are you?”

Looking at the big guy, as he tried to intimidate me, all I could see (if he touched me) was the bloody mess he would leave after I sliced his fat gut open from side to side in one sweeping motion. I literally had to shake the image out of my head.

Instead, I drew a quarter from my pocket and flipped it in the air and walked out the door. I still can’t believe I had to pay for a book I already owned, but on the bright side, it was only a quarter’s worth of a mistake and not a drop of blood was lost.

A pharmacist employed at the corner drug store came to work only to find a guy leaning against a nearby wall. Curious, he asks the newly hired clerk, “So, what’s up with that guy?”

The new clerk responds, “Well, he came in this morning to get something for his cough, but I couldn’t find the cough syrup, so I gave him an entire bottle of laxative.”

In a panic, the pharmacist shouts at her, “You can’t treat a cough with a laxative!”

Unabashed, she calmly responds, “Yes, you can. Since I gave it to him, he’s been afraid to cough.”

She knocked politely on the door and waited. Something move in the peripheral of her right eye, but when she turned her head to look, nothing was there.

“Hello,” the woman said as she opened the door, “You must be Amelia, here about the maid job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, come on in. My name is Helen and my husband, whose up stairs, is Don. He’ll be joining us in a minute or so,” the woman stated.

Amelia followed her into the parlor and sat where Helen gestured  for her to sit. She didn’t expect the house to have so many rooms.

“Tea?” Helen offered.

Amelia smiled, “Yes, please.”

From above she heard footsteps move across the ceiling, creaking floorboards gave way to the softer patter of walking on carpet as Don moved towards the stairs. He seemed much, much to young for her, Amelia noticed.

After a few minutes of general conversation, the trio got down to business. Helen wanted to know about Amelia’s experience and references.

“Oh, don’t worry child,” Helen said. “There are 33 rooms to this old mansion and we use only four, so cleaning after us isn’t as daunting as you may think.”

By the end of the hour, the couple hired the young woman. Don helped her move her few things into the back bedroom, beyond the kitchen and dining room.

After they finished, he took her on a tour of the property, pointing out the family crypt and the old tobacco barn, now in severe disrepair. “Many a tale has come up through the generations about spirits and hoo-doo from that falling down building,” he offered.

Inside, it was Helen who offered the tour. She took Amelia to nearly every room in the home, save for one: “That one is off-limits. Not even Don or I go in there.”

Amelia looked at the door as they walked past it. Her curiosity was instantly piqued by the locked door.

For nearly three weeks, Amelia did her chores as scheduled. She dusted, swept, mopped, washed their clothes and folded the laundry as well as laundered the linen on a daily basis before remaking the beds.

“All in all,” she wrote in her diary, “This isn’t a bad job. The pay is good and I have the free range of the kitchen, so food isn’t a worry. However, I’m still wondering about what’s behind that door upstairs.”

It wasn’t but the following day that Helen and Don left the house for a trip into town, leaving Amelia alone for the first time. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Amelia watched them drive away down the long gravel road that led out to the paved road. She set the broom aside that she’d been using to sweep the front porch.

Quickly, she moved upstairs to the room deemed off-limits. The knob moved easily as she turned it and pushed in the door.

The room was empty of furniture. In fact it was devoid of paint, wallpaper or carpet.

The walls and the floors were hard wood, rough grained, and darkened as if by age. Seeing that there was nothing to be seen, Amelia turned to leave, but found herself unable because of an unseen force preventing her from stepping through the doorway.

Amelia rushed at the door, only to bounce backwards and onto the floor. She tried opening the shuttered windows, but they refused to budge.

Then she heard her employers’ vehicle as it rattled and bumped it’s way up the long drive to the front porch. Her heart sunk and she instantly felt sick as she listened to the sound of their footsteps coming into the front hall and then up the stairs.

“Finally!” Helen said as she stood in front of the door to the forbidden room.

“What did I tell you, my dear,” Don added. “All we needed to do was leave for a bit and she’d trap herself.”

“Wait…what’s going on,” Amelia wanted to know, “How come I can’t get out of here.”

“You and I are going to transfer souls,” Helen stated with a smile.

“You’re crazy, old woman,” Amelia cried.

“Maybe,” Helen replied with a laugh. “But maybe you’re the one that’s crazy.”

“I don’t understand?” questioned a panicked Amelia.

Don stood in the doorway, “Do you think a young man with such a fine body as mine is going to find sexual pleasure with the old, worn out body that Helen is living in?”

“You’re both crazy!” Amelia shouted.

“No,” he answered, “I’m simply young again — and soon Helen will be, too – thanks to you. And I must say, your body is quite thrilling to look at – I can’t wait to make love to it.”

Amelia backed away from the door as she gagged and threw up. Feeling weak in the knees, she dropped to the floor and began sobbing breathlessly.

She cried so hard, that she failed to see the shadow as it crossed from one corner of the room to the other, then behind her. And as Amelia began to find it harder and harder to breathe, she heard Helen call out to Don, “That’s the problem with today’s youth.”

“What is, my dear?” Don asked.

“They don’t listen to their elders,” Helen chuckled.

Having lost my parents, my only brother and a sister, I tend to feel deeply for friends and family who suffer the passing of a family member. There is so much to do when a loved one dies, that the normal activities in life can feel overwhelming.  And since I’m unable to be present and act as a buffer between the family and those meaning well, I offered to help my friend, Frank and his family by doing the only thing I’m decent at, which is writing and I thank you for the honor… Lori Ann Love was born July 15, 1958 in Crescent City, California to Doris and Darrell Love. She passed away at the age of 60, from heart failure in Eugene, Oregon. Lori went to several elementary schools including one in Rio Vista, California, Gasquet Elementary and Lake Earl Elementary before attending Crescent Elk Middle School. She graduated from Del Norte High School in 1976 where she lettered in Varsity Basketball and excelled as a drummer in the school’s Marching Band. Following graduation, Lori went to work for Kacy’s Market, learning to cut meat under journeyman butcher, Dean Hupp. She moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where she worked for Smith’s Food and Drug Stores. Once back in Crescent City, she took a position with Shop Smart Food Warehouse and often helped her brother Frank at Crescent Meats and Pacific Market. Lori leaves behind not only her parents, but brother’s Darrell Love, Jr., and Frank Love. She’s survived by many others including: Dan, Sara Bellinger, Megan Love Fears, Laural, Jackson, Elizabeth, Leya, Kyle, Tristan, Riley, Andrew, Emily, Taylor, May, Braedon, Julia, Max; Ann Cliff Cutter, Margie, Gordon, Jim, Marty, Maready, Kathy, Deborah, and Teresa. Aside from always smiling and being the greatest daughter, sister and auntie ever, Lori would help whomever needed it. She loved her many friends including Jean Rupert, Sabrina Custer, Kelly Doan, Lori Wilma Wilson, Shelley and Ti Davis, and the late Jayson Cantrell. And finally, a big thanks to Diane and Joe Stuart for tossing Lori a great 60th birthday party. The Love Family loves all of you that showed your support and generosity during our time of grief and we will forever be grateful for your prayers and condolences.

Charlie sat on the bench in the Walmart waiting to pick up his medication. Next to him sat an elderly lady, well older than Charlie, and she was a chatter-box.

He patiently listen as the woman talked about her life and all the exciting adventures she’d lived through. But what she mostly talked about was being one of the original Vegas showgirls, back in the day.

“Oh, that was a glamorous time,” she cooed. “And it was more than risqué as I dance the in midnight shows – you know – topless, letting the girls out to have a little fun on their own.”

Charlie smiled and without realizing it, glanced down at the woman’s breasts. He quickly looked up at the woman’s face, but by then he’d been caught and he knew it.

“I saw that,” she said with delight. “You men – gay, straight, or both ways – are all the same.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said, turning red from embarrassment.

“Don’t apologize. It’s only natural, especially when an old broad pushing 90 says something about her tits.”

“Ninety?” he questioned, realizing she must have had plastic surgery in order to appear so youthful.

“Damn near, honey. And I still got it.”

“Well, I would have never guessed.”

“The wonders of what a good plastic surgeon can do for a gal. By the way, my names Etna – like the volcano.”

She held out her hand.

Looking down, Etna offered, “Got the kittens a few years back. A girl’s gotta keep up if she’s gonna live the fun life.”

“You mean you have implants? Charlie asked.

“You betch’a!” Etna stated with a certain amount of pride. “And I’m proud of my girls, made me a lot of money in my day.”

“I can see that,” Charlie replied.

“I bet you wanna see them, don’t ya?” she laughed as she dug through her purse, pulling out a piece of an envelope and an ink pen.

She quickly wrote her telephone number on the paper and handed it to Charlie, “Here’s my number if you’d like to look’em over. I promise, I don’t bite, even though I have all my teeth. We can have a drink and some fun.”

The twice-divorced Charlie looked at the number, then back at Etna before lying, “I’m a married man.”

“I figgered so,” she returned. “All the good-looking, mature men seem to be taken and I certainly don’t want a twenty or even thirty-something boy-toy to run around with.”

Suddenly, the person behind the counter called her name. She stood up, revealing that at one point in her life Etna had been a real knock-out.

Another clerk called Charlie to the counter.  As he paid for the prescription, he thought, “There was a time it was me chasing the older women around; now the older women are chasing me. What a turn around.”

Etna stepped passed Charlie and loudly whispered before she disappeared around the corner towards the exit, “Keep the number – ‘cuz you never know, honey.”

Charlie stuffed the number in his shirt pocket as he left the store. Once at his truck, he withdrew it and balled it up, intending to toss it in the bed of the truck, but he hesitated, flattening it out instead.

“What could it hurt?” he thought as he picked up his cellphone, curiosity getting the better of him.

The dig was going along swimmingly for the old archaeologist. Soon, he’d have all the answers to the age-old question that science struggled with for eons: where did man come from?

Professor Horatio Goldfarb jus’ didn’t know it yet.

Evolution had long ago hypothesized that Homo Sapiens descended from monkeys or apes. ‘Old Farb,’ as he was known, had spent his entire career trying to disprove that theory which seemed so popular among his much-learned colleagues, as they continued to misinterpret Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species.’

“There has to be a master designer — nothing simply comes into being on its own,” he often said.

In his exploration of both ancient texts and even older sites, he tirelessly searched the globe for what had long eluded mankind. But now it was found, uncovered and ready to be examined completely.

He and his team had found the real ‘missing link’ in the middle of a Kansas wheatfield and he was certain it held all the clues as well as all the answers to his quest. Tucked beneath a cavernous tent, shielded from the broiling sun and the prying eyes of the curious, he slowly opened the thing.

His flashlight pierced the long dark interior and what he saw turned his world upside down. It was mostly empty, save for two hollow sarcophagi and endless engravings and inscriptions, along what he supposed, were the walls.

Among the multitude of diagrams, he recognized three basic languages: Classical Hebrew, Sumerian Cuneiform and Egyptian Hieroglyphic, though each had a slight variance to what the University’s and Colleges taught. And by using all three, he quickly deciphered the texts and came away with a possible answer for what he’d discovered.

Goldfarb scratched a few words in his journal before continuing to investigate his find, “It’s the story of Kal-El, come to life and he had a companion, a female!”

After stuffing his journal in his back pocket, the old archaeologist rubbed his hands together, hoping to learn why Mars had become extinct and how Adam and Eve came to be the planet’s last survivors.

He rolled over, stiff and cold from where he’d collapsed the night before. The abandoned house, trashed from its misuses by the other druggies, left a fowl stench in his nose, making him gag.

Sid Clayton slowly sat up, hurting and dope sick. He knew he needed to find another fix soon or he’d really be in pain.

Money though was a problem for the 19-year-old as it often was for those hooked on heroin. Being a drug-fiend was an expensive occupation for a young man barely out of high school.

Once outside, he looked up at the cloudy skies and complained, “Gotta get some cash.”

Sid knew exactly what he needed to do to score both the money and the drugs. He would find an unlocked door to a nearby home and ransack it.

He had done it before and it was becoming easier. Sid never took actual items as he’d seen too many others in his situation get caught with cameras, cellphones and laptops.

“Plus, the pond shop always wants a photo idea,” he recalled.

After slipping into two houses undetected and finding nothing more than a few coins, Sid slipped back into the wooded area behind the residential neighborhood. By this time he was really beginning to feel the effects of his dope-sickness and it spurred him on to finding that ‘bigger’ score for the day’s high.

After rummaging around in a third home on the backside of the tract of homes he’d been at, and again finding nothing more than a couple of dollars and a pistol, Sid decided he must up his game. Then he remembered that down the street was Miss Drew’s home.

At one time the 87-year-old woman had been his Sunday School teacher, but that was years ago. What Sid was actually fixated on was the fact that in the past she’d been known to help those who asked her.

“And, all I need is twenty-bucks.”

He walked to her house, wiped off his dirt-stained tee-shirt and jeans as best he could, then knocked on her door. Seconds later the woman, jus’ as he remembered her, opened the door.

“Why Sidney Clayton, as I live and breathe,” she smiled. “Wipe your feet and come in. I’ll pour some coffee.”

Her home was warm and smelled of both fresh-baked bread and coffee. Sid realized that it had been a length of time since he last ate anything.

“So what brings you by?” Miss Drew asked.

Sid found it odd that she didn’t appear to notice his filthy, unkempt appearance or care for that matter that he still managed to track mud in across her living room carpet and into the kitchen, where she beckoned him to have a seat at her dining table. He suddenly found himself back in time, the seven-year-old in her class, as she placed a mug of coffee and two slices of bread, butter and jam on the side, in front of him.

“It’s so wonderful to see you, Sid,” she added.

He didn’t answer as he had a mouthful of food, and despite his drug habit, he still had some manners about him. As soon as he swallowed, he spoke, “Thank you, ma’am. I hadn’t eaten in a day or so.”

“Well, you eat up, there’s more where that came from.”

“Actually, Miss Drew, I need to borrow some money.”

“For more drugs, honey?”

She knew! Sid’s heart felt like it was going to explode from shame and he couldn’t look the old woman in the eye as he answered, “Yes. Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry, Sid, but I don’t have but a couple of dollars and besides I wouldn’t give it to you so you can jus’ go off and fill your veins with more poison.”

She said it with such kindness, that Sid nearly got sick. He felt embarrassed and it angered him as he stood up and yanked the pistol from behind his back, aiming it at the woman.

“I need money. I’m sick and I’m getting sicker by the minute. Twenty-dollars is all I want.”

It were as if a there were a switch thrown in his brain, as the old lady was suddenly ramrod straight and appeared taller than he ever known her to be. As he watched her grow, be felt as if he were shrinking.

“You need to go, now, before you force me to call the sheriff,” she said sternly, as she lifted the telephone receiver from the wall.

“Twenty-bucks! That’s all I’m asking,” Sid pleaded loudly.

Miss Drew began to dial the phone and as she did Sid closed his eye’s tight, trying to rid himself of this self-imposed nightmare. He heard the roar of a thunder-clap as it ripped through his psyche and when he finally opened his eyes, to his horror, Miss Drew lay on her kitchen floor, still gripping the receiver, a red spot growing between her breasts.

Panicked, Sid quickly dumped the content of her purse out only to discover she had not been lying. She had only three one-dollar bills and a few pennies, nickles and dimes.

After going through her bedroom drawers, searching under her mattress and pilfering her desk, Sid walked out the front door and down the street. He quickly slipped between two houses and back into the woods where he’d come from.

As he hid behind a stand of trees, Sid felt a heavy drop of fluid land on his forehead. He reached up and wiped it away, looking at his hand in the process – it was blood-red.

Soon more and more bloody drops of rain struck him. He couldn’t help himself as he screamed and wiped the gooey residue off his skin.

Then he looked up to the sky and cried, “I’m sorry, God. Please make it stop!”

Sid bowed his head and cried until his sides ached. Still the bloody-rain continued to fall.

“What do you want me to do?!” he screamed.

By this time his tee-shirt, though dirty, had become stained a dark pink. He looked around and saw puddles filling with blood, thick and sickly looking.

Quietly, he dropped to his knees, removed the pistol from his waistband, and with tears streaming down his face, begged forgiveness as he place the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Sid fell onto his right side, dead.

The following day, Ed Johnson and his dog, Buddy were walking through the woods, when the dog darted off the trail and into the deeper bushes. After calling for Buddy to return, Mr. Johnson decided to go retrieve the animal.

“Probably found another possum, damned dog, anyways,” he complained.

However, what the dog found was the body of Sid Clayton. Quickly, Mr. Johnson put the leash he had with him on Buddy and dragged the animal home so a call to the Sheriff’s Office could be made.

Within minutes, a deputy sheriff met the shaken man near where the body lay. The pair carefully entered the brush together.

The cruiser’s AM radio played in the background, “Authorities say that yesterday’s rare red-colored rain is actually the spores of a green algae that’s become airborne. Official’s say this algae isn’t dangerous to humans or animals. They do, however, recommend washing any produce before eating it…”